The eye patch. Oh, the glorious eye patch.

You never see the eye patch that much anymore. Which is unfortunate. It’s probably due to a combination of better medicine and the prevalence of the glass eye. But its still ingrained into the culture, though its synonymousness with pirates is misunderstood. According to the gospel of Wiki, pirates wore the patch on alternating eyes for above deck (bright) and below deck (dark) to preserve their night vision as a practical means. I can’t give all the credit for that last bit to Wikipedia because I vaguely remember seeing it on Mythbusters, as well. And for me, that’s all the fact checking I need.
Of course at the same time, it was really the only medical answer in those days so it was common on land as well. When I was a kid and I’d throw on my toy eye patch, I remember being uncomfortable as to whether to keep my covered eye shut or to leave it open. Leaving it open and having the darkness under the patch stand next to the actual vision seemed to me like I was damaging my eye. Keeping it closed on the other, left my face scrunched up and it took some effort to maintain it with clearly distracted me from my reverie of make believe. Suffice it to say, I didn’t enjoy dressing up as a pirate with such a conundrum to ponder.

Whenever we’d create characters for RPG, the idea of the eye patch came up every so often … until one of my rules worried players would ask if there were any negative game effects. Loss of depth perception and complete blindness on one flank? Um … yeah! And it was quickly abandoned for some other defining trait … like silver hair or something.

Pirates and eye patches. Like peanut butter and jelly (I just lost the Aussies). But why should something so cool be stuck in our collective pop culture conscious with Erroll Flynn when the potential coolness quotient is much larger.

Here then is my list of the top five coolest eye patch wearers in reverse order without a single galley wag. By the way, I’m breaking with wikipedia and making eye patch two words instead of one. I tried it as one word, but it just didn’t look right. So don’t comment/email me on the possible misspelling.

Honorable Mention: Sgt. Nick Fury, Sallow (Rutger Hauer) from the Blood of Heroes, Bushwick Bill, Dangermouse, and Sagat.

And now the list …

#5. James Booker: Anyone that has read a few of my columns or knows me personally (I’m so sorry for you), knows that I like … daresay love … 70s funk, soul, R&B, and blues. How convenient that my love of this era intersects with my list of eye patchees. Ladies and gentlemen, I present you James Booker. James Booker is a stud and the attached picture will prove it. I haven’t seen someone this stoned since Matthew McConaughey in Dazed & Confused. In fact, I’d wager to say that Mr. Booker has reached perma-stoned status. He may have been one of the people to convince Snoop to stop smoking along with Bootsy Collins.

This man is a musical genius, literally a ghetto version of Mozart. He was child prodigy and able to play complete classical pieces … from memory. Unleashed onto the 70s music scene, he was lightning in a bottle and severely addicted to drugs, go figure.

Now what makes me sick is that in the age of music videos and American Idol, this poor, ugly bastard would never get a chance beyond playing at truck stops or stuck behind some boy-faced, blond haired lead man. And thus the disintegration of Western Culture. I digress.

#4. Breetai: Technically, you could say that this giant-sized alien general does not have an eye patch, but instead a cybernetic eye with a steel exo-cranial plate. For me, that still counts. I am 31 years old and I still can’t say his name without falling into the booming baritone of the cartoon. I AM COMMANDER BREETAI, MICRONIAN!

Now as everyone surely knows, Breetai was the second in command of the invading Zentradi forces during the First Robotech War. He’s a military genius, stands over 40 feet tall, and can even exist in a space vacuum with no protection. He’s also one of the first creations of the Robotech masters and is 500,000 years old, which is slightly older than John McCain. There is a classic scene where he fights a veritech fighter barehanded. And wins. Awesome.

Why hasn’t Hollywood jumped on the Robotech bandwagon? Well, I’ve heard that its in the early stages with Tobey Maguire involved as a producer and I’m pretty excited to see if he’ll play Rick Hunter. I’m also interested to see who they get to play Roy Focker. Roy is a perfect fit for a young Val Kilmer if you ask me, but with a last name like Focker, wouldn’t it be great to put in someone like Will Ferrell? (you thought I was going to say Ben Stiller, didn’t you?). I hope that Minmay gets eaten by wild boars.

IF … the word is IF … they leave out Breetai and Lord Khyron in the movie adaptation, I will firebomb the Warner Brothers studios. I’m just that crazy.

#3. Yamada (Sho Kosugi): This character only makes one appearance in pop culture and that is in the flawlessly crafted movie, Ninja III: the Domination. N3D (as I like to refer to it) was brought to us by the genius tandem of Golan & Globus. For those true martial arts fans, these two names are holy and sacred. The mantle that was left by Bruce in the 1970s was picked up and carried in the 80s by these two. They essentially hired porno script writers and just did a find a replace of sex with bad ass martial arts fighting. God bless them and their bloodline for 10 generations.

Here’s a run down of the N3D plot. A pretty (by 80s standards) aerobics instructor / telephone repair person is possessed by an evil ninja spirit that just killed 50+ cops in the first 5 minutes of the movie before using his ninja magic to whirlwind into the ground. Sho is the ninja enforcer and detective that has tracked his gray ninja from Japan. Eventually, they have a duel where Sho dodges magical ninja fireballs (Streetfighter anyone?) and succinctly plants a dagger into the very apex of the evil spirit ninja’s head while climbing from a crack formed by a magical ninja earthquake.

When I saw this movie and all of the ninja magic, it was just as natural to me as blue sky. Somewhere inside, I think I truly believed that true ninjas had magical powers. Something like Santa Claus with throwing stars and climbing spikes.

One of the best lines from this movie. Sho says to the cop boyfriend of the possessed girl, “Take her to the old temple. On da hill.” This is LA, folks. Apparently, there is an old Shinto/Buddhist temple overlooking Rodeo Drive filled with aspiring Shaolin monk fighters … which the cop immediately recognizes. Sho gets extra credit for 1) being the best Japanese action star ever and 2) playing the evil ninja with a chain mail mask in the Master TV show.

#2. Slick Rick: Rick the Ruler! Probably everyone and anyone that started reading this column could have predicted that Rick would be referenced herein to some degree. I’m happy to oblige. Rick’s influence was immeasurable in early rap. This includes not only his music and delivery style, but also his image, posturing, and personality. I can’t tell you how many songs have stolen the entire hook from Children’s Story. Of course, La Di Da Di is a rap anthem, made only more famous in Snoop’s version with the G-funk remix. I remember karaoking this song, completely drunk, with 10 similarly smashed sorority girls on a single microphone. I’m sure the crowd loved it, I honestly can’t remember.

I believe that you can also attribute to Rick (as well as the other Rick … James) that he significantly raised the bar on achieving street cred in the form of his not one, but TWO attempted murder charges and subsequent prison term. Gone were the days of the Sugarhill Gang rapping in turtlenecks at white discos. This led the way to Eazy & NWA, Snoop, and the penultimate rap superstar and tragically flawed hero of the people, Tupac.

It’s too bad that he went to jail, really at his prime. When he got out, the rap game had changed substantially. He had some success with the Art of Storytelling, particularly on the Outkast and Nas songs. Listening to the cleverness of his lyrics and easy delivery, its a real shame that clowns like Soulja Boy can even sell records.

#1. Snake Plissken: Listen to my words, they will serve you well, everything before 1989 that John Carpenter ever directed is pure gold. Gold does not describe it accurately, its solid uranium. Here’s the list: Dark Star, Assault on Precinct 13, Halloween, the Fog, Escape from New York, the Thing, Christine, Starman, Big Trouble in Little China, Prince of Darkness, and They Live. I dare you to find one of these movies that you wouldn’t start watching should the reruns show up on TNT or USA.

I can’t think of another director that has had such a uninterrupted run of unbelievable movies. OK, I’m wrong. John Landis starting with the Kentucky Fried Movie (1977) until Coming to America (1988), which includes American Werewolf in London, Blues Brothers, Twilight Zone the Movie, Thriller, Spies Like Us, and Three Amigos, among others.

From this batch of cinematic nirvana, you have the Snake. He was Rambo before Rambo. The one man army sent in to take on Isaac Hayes and his horde of mutoids that live in the ruins of fallen NYC in a post-apocalyptic world of the future. Pretty much what Detroit is like right now. He even fought a grisly circus freak with more back hair than a steroidal Iranian wrestler armed a baseball bat studded with seven inch spikes.

Now I’m not going to stand up for his last name … that’s just horrible. Plissken. This let’s you know that I’m being objective. Its almost like they saddled him with the worst last name only to make him cooler … similar in concept to a Boy Named Sue. At the same time, I like to pretend that Escape from LA just never happened.

Snake Plissken was obviously the inspiration for Metal Gear Solid’s protagonist. Even the guy’s name, Solid Snake. So Plissken (ugh) gets all the credit for that video game franchise’s coolness as well.

There you have it, the top five eye patch toting bad asses. I’m tempted to gouge out my own eye right now just so I can wear the patch too.